Ray Almgren, National Instruments vice president of product marketing and academic relations, addressed a worldwide community of engineering educators October 12 at the American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE) fifth annual Global Colloquium on Engineering Education in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The colloquium brings engineering educators across the globe together and gives teachers and researchers a unique opportunity to meet and exchange ideas and viewpoints.
During his address, Almgren discussed the significant responsibility facing engineering educators who must prepare students for a career in a global, multidisciplinary engineering environment, where corporations are designing and developing products using disparate tools across multiple time zones. He also addressed how global competitiveness and time-to-market needs have positively impacted the quality of students’ education by emphasizing design aspects early and throughout their education.
Almgren leads the technical marketing operations for National Instruments as well as the company's worldwide academic relations program. Throughout his 18-year career at National Instruments, Almgren has devoted significant effort to enhancing science and engineering education and inspiring students to pursue technical careers. He pioneered many of the company's academic and university relations programs, including the ROBOLAB project, which combines LEGO® MINDSTORMS® with National Instruments LabVIEW graphical development software to introduce robotics and control in grades K-12. Almgren was also instrumental in the development of the next generation of LEGO robotics, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT, which includes easy-to-use, intuitive software powered by NI LabVIEW.
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